Upstream swimming in microbiological flows
Soft Condensed Matter
2016-07-14 v2 Biological Physics
Fluid Dynamics
Abstract
Interactions between microorganisms and their complex flowing environments are essential in many biological systems. We develop a model for microswimmer dynamics in non-Newtonian Poiseuille flows. We predict that swimmers in shear-thickening (-thinning) fluids migrate upstream more (less) quickly than in Newtonian fluids and demonstrate that viscoelastic normal stress differences reorient swimmers causing them to migrate upstream at the centreline, in contrast to well-known boundary accumulation in quiescent Newtonian fluids. Based on these observations, we suggest a sorting mechanism to select microbes by swimming speed.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1507.00962,
title = {Upstream swimming in microbiological flows},
author = {Arnold J. T. M. Mathijssen and Tyler N. Shendruk and Julia M. Yeomans and Amin Doostmohammadi},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1507.00962},
year = {2016}
}
Comments
Four figures and 56 references